And so we were off, and as we were about to exit the tavern, there was a man standing in the doorway.

“I’m seeking a group of Adventurers, would you be Adventurers?” I paid the man no mind, as we were in a hurry to vanquish the local well tainting Wight.

But, of course, Laenor began talking to him.

As it turned out, he was an Adventurer looking to join a Party, so I pulled him aside and spoke most direct.

“We don’t have much time… First of all, were on a great quest, secondly we’re first going to go and destroy a Wight that is tainting the local well, which could be dangerous… If this is something that interests you, than you may join…”

“Sounds good,” he quickly agreed, but I sensed he was hiding something.

“There’s one other thing… What are your thoughts on Magic? Because several of us wield it.”

He paused, “I have no problem with it, though our laws prohibit it.”

“What is it you’re not telling me?” I questioned, beginning to lose my patience, a sense of urgency under my proverbial belt.

“I too have gifts in such things…” this warmed my heart for an instance.

I smiled, “Then come.”

We headed towards the river which was near the well…

…I lead the Party, as the Undead were my thing being a Paladin.

Before we knew it we came upon a bridge across a low part of the river.

Within the river were several Ghouls.

Laenor, of course, without talking to the rest of the group, moved forward.

Arinar, our Druid, and myself tried to move quietly towards it as well…

…but I was unsuccessful, my armor clanking a bit.

Quickly battle ensued, and many more Ghouls came.

“Of Course, What Was I Thinking, Wights Often Create Zombies Out Of Their Victims”.

I thought to myself.

After Laenor and Arinar began an attack, I quickly moved to the bridge, where I was within 30 feet of the 5 Ghouls, and Cast “TURN!”.

Four of the Ghouls turned, “ATTACK THE NON TURNED FIRST!” I bellowed, but of course none listened.

Our Barbarian Nekana went upon the bridge, which gave her a ‘higher ground’ advantage, and was quick to lay waste to one or two Ghouls, with my help.

Our new companion, PHILIPO, joined us on the bridge, and blinded a few of them…

…more Ghouls came, but in the end, we were successful.

Sadly, I used my THUNDEROUS SMITE, BLESS and DIVINE SMITE before the battle was through, and thus was ready, and/or needed to rest before entering battle with the Wight.

Unfortunately, to our surprise, a GIANT GLOWING SKULL appeared at the other end of the bridge before that was possible.

“YOU’RE IN MY DOMAIN NOW!” it spoke, before disappearing.

Sadly, I do not think there will be time for me to rest, and/or pray for the return of my Diety’s gifts.

All sitting at a long table for breakfast at the Inn, Laenor came down the stairs with the Sage.

After breakfast, the Sage got us all a private room for a meeting to occur.

After much discussion, we decided we would not return to Pentacle, in case they were aware of why the Gnolls were cursed, and were merely using the Gnoll Slaying competition in order to clean up their mess.

it was decided that the Party would separate, Walker our Rogue, and Ulfin our Barbarian Dwarf would head to the Halfling Leader of The Sun Hills, while the Sage would find his son, the Fighter, and communicate our findings to the Gainsboro Sands Capital, and their Leaders.

To my surprise Laenor suggested we head to Mount Marshal, so that I could speak to my King, and then head towards the Till Woods to notify his Elven people.

I brought up the fact that we had promised Nekana that we would help her confront her family, who had banished her years ago, but being that they too were from Mount Marshal, this wouldn’t be a problem.

It was decided that I would approach their King while they went to see her family.

And so we were off!

Finally to make our way out of this Desert, it’s heat, it’s bugs, its’ death and mystery.

But of course, on our second day of travel, we ran into four swarms of Scarabs, and/or Beetles.

Difficult to attack, we did our best

Our Elven Fighter Feldaerae lashed at them with her whip, hitting some, but the bugs struck back damaging her.

I called out the words ‘BY THERAMUS, I SEARING SMITE THEE!’, and my blade caught a blaze…

Several of the bugs were killed, and some were left ablaze, but sadly the fire quickly went out.

Nekana, our massive (tall) female Barbarian, continued onward at first unaware of the attack that was happening behind her…

…but after I damaged the Scarabs, they fled and ran right into her.

She Raged in a Frenzy! Angry, and annoyed, she laid waste to the rest of that group.

Meanwhile Ashkan, our Human Ranger sent his Vulture after the bugs, with minimal results…

…he also swang his short sword about, to no avail.

Unfortunately one of the other unharmed groups of Beetles attacked me, damaging my form, and thus I called upon Theramus once more, my hands glowing blue, and placed them upon my chest, healing me.

Sadly they were relentless, as they covered my body, attacking me until I fell unconscious.

Meanwhile our Elven Eldritch Knight Laenor swang his rapier, and even threw down his fist smashing several of them.

…then, seeing I was down, cast Healing Word upon me, raising me directly to my feet with a gasp!

I can not say how many times this Druid has aided me, I am forever in his debt…

…for though I have great bestowed gifts within me at the hands of my God Theramus, my body is not as strong as I’d like it to be.

Soon we defeated the enemy, Nekana doing more than her fair share of the damage, and we continued towards Mount Marshal.

Once there we came across a bit of a run down Tavern…

…I myself wanted to continue to our destination, but before I could say anything, Nekana had entered, and got the Party a table.

Laenor, stricken by her unusually friendly behavior, watched from the doorway, trying not to be seen.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Party entered, and sat at the table.

The oddest thing then occurred…

…Arinar, not a drinker, asked for water, and the Barkeep wouldn’t give him any…

…after much questioning, and Laenor secretly trying some of the water for himself, we came to find that a WIGHT had moved into the area of their well, and tainted the water.

Laenor threw up most of the water, but I grabbed his arm and took him outside where I Cast ‘NEUTRALIZE POISON’ upon him, my hands glowing blue once more, I placed them against his chest, and he suddenly felt better.

He then looked at me and said, “A Wight… This sounds up your alley…”.

He was, of course, right.

Inclined to ‘extinguish’ this Wight from mortal troubling, the Party decided, we would seek it out, and destroy it!

When we reached the border of the Blightlands where the Barbarians had told us about an exit through the magic barrier, where it for some reason parted, there were dead bodies all about.

Lost souls who had tried to come through the barrier by passing through its’ magic, only to lose there minds, and apparently, meet their makers.

Unbelievably there was a Gnoll underneath one of the bodies that was still alive…

Laenor approached it, and tried to speak to it, but it only mumbled ‘Kill Man… Kill Man” over and over again.

And so Laenor secretly put it out of its’ misery, and told the Party it had died.

After this, we inspected the opening in the barrier, and once I was convinced it was safe, I offered to go through it first.

Once through it the extreme heat of the Gainsboro Sands sent me to one knee.

The Blightlands had been so much cooler, but we really hadn’t seemed to realize the vast difference upon entering it.

Though we were underground a long time before we had.

The rest came through, some felt weakened like me by the heat, some did not.

Nekana our Barbarian laughed at us.

And so we were headed home, but first we needed to travel through the Gainsboro Sand’s intense heat.

Immediately we ran into three large Desert Lizards…

A short battle occurred, Nekana literally cutting one of them in half with a single blow of her great axe…

She laughed again.

The rest of us were able to take down the other two pretty quickly, and so we continued.

We reached the large city where we hoped our Party Member Ulfin would be, as we had Ashkan our Ranger send his pet Vulture with a note to him requesting to meet us here.

Nekana, Feldaerae and Walker went to the tavern, while Laenor and Ashkan headed to the Inn.

Meanwhile Arinar checked out the Herb shop, and I went to the Jeweler.

I had found three blue gems on one of the bodies by the Blightlands border, but couldn’t discern what they were.

The man with the long goggles on his face told me that they were Azurite, and that though they weren’t worth all that much to Gainsman, the Elves found them to be of some value.

I asked if he could put them on silver chains, and he said that he didn’t do such things, so I pocketed them and said good day.

Meanwhile Arinar purchased some Herbs which might aid us against the extreme heat, and Ashkan went to a watchtower where he called his vulture.

He spoke to it, and it told him that it had delivered the note to our Dwarven companion, but for some reason Ulfin headed to the Blightlands instead of staying like we had requested.

And so he sent another note to Ulfin via the vulture, in hopes that he would return in the morrow.

Meanwhile the three girls got drunk at the tavern, and Arinar and I arrived there around the time they felt feeling their drinks.

I offered to buy Arinar some of my homeland’s wine, which they carried, and he said he had never had a drink.

We joined the girls, purchased some wine, and drank.

It seemed to affect Arinar right away, so I escorted him to his room, and hoped to find out some word about Ulfin.

To no avail, and so I went to my chambers, did some meditation and prayer, then went to sleep.

Meanwhile Larnor studied the ‘boom stick’ he found within the Blightlands, joined shortly after by Ashkan who wished to speak to him.

Ashkan was concerned about him, noticing that Laenor had seemed a bit odd since he had went into the trance upon the Blightland Temple’s throne.

Laenor spoke of his past, and how it had something in it that the vision had reminded him of.

The two of them spoke about a good many things, and at the end Ashkan cut his hand, and asked that they be blood brothers…

…a Gainsmen tradition.

Laenor quickly accepted, cut his own hand, and so the two are bonded.

The next morning Laenor spoke to the Sage we had met earlier in our travels, who apparently was logging in the Inn as well, and told him all about what we had discovered in regards to the Gnoll’s Curse.

Sadly, we had agreed the night before that we as a group would discuss these things prior to telling any other…

Laenor had broke a direct agreement with me, and the group, so I needs speak to him.

To a Paladin, one’s word is very important.

Our morning did have some good news, as the gates of the city opened, and in walked our long separated companion Ulfin, laughing in his familiar high pitched way.

After we piled all of the Gnolls bodies together, the Party had a discussion.

We spoke of a Gnoll that spoke Ashkan’s name during the battle…

…he wanted us to spare his life, but that particular Gnoll was set on trying to scratch me.

Our Druid Arinar incinerated it in the end with one of his spells…

Ashkan looked most bleak after the battle…

…we feared that perhaps one of his relative had been somehow transformed into a Gnoll, Laenor and I both came to that deduction.

Ashkan told me that was a dear friend of his that had been taken because of his Firey magic abilities…

…it was mostly likely him that we slayed.

After much discussion, we decided that we should spend another hour or so searching for evidence that might indicate that these ‘Gnoll’s were actually Magic Users who had been transformed into these dog men.

None of us knew exactly how long ‘Gnoll’s had existed in our world, but after analyzing one of their bodies, it did indeed look that he had some human qualities still left in him.

We would travel a bit further, then return to Pentacle with our findings…

This ‘Greater Cause’ appealed to me more than just slaying Gnolls for some contest, even though in doing we were also protecting their potential future victims.

No, there was something more to all of this, and we started to suspect that the Circle of Pentacle may have held back from telling anyone…

…we suspected that they just wanted the whole thing washed away, and thus created this contest so that the Gnolls could simply be removed from the land.

It was nighttime, and several of us needed to rest…

…but before we would, I asked all of the Party to take part in my ‘Oath of Devotion’ Ceremony, where I would join with the God Theramus in his hope of a better world.

We completed the Ceremony, then went to sleep.

The next day we ran across three other Barbarians, but Laenor convinced them that the contest was not a good thing, and so they went on their way without trouble…

…though our Barbarian Nekana was biting at the bit to attack them.

We traveled further in the ruins only to discover more books that seem to indicate some sort of ‘Magic’ People had lived here, and meant to attack the Southlands…

…but to what end?

Nekana encouraged us to forget about the ruins, and instead travel up the path ahead of us that went up a large mountain.

When we reached the top, there was a huge gold temple which was so broken down, that when it’s gold form was touched, it merely turned to dust.

Within it we found a great Throne, and Laenor sat in it.

Within it he had a great vision of the Magic Wielding people following the Leadership of a woman…

…it all felt familiar to him, and once the vision was complete, he felt quite weak.

Thus ended our quest into the Blightlands…

… we would now travel back to Pentacle with our findings, and approach the Circle of power there, demanding answers.

After a challenging exploration through a tunnel leading to The Blightlands, we were at last through.

Before us the sand of the Blightlands looked more like a gray ash.

Per Laenor’s suggestion, we powdered ourselves with it, so as to dull the gleam of our Armour while crossing the planes before us.

To the left, there was flat lands as far as the eyes could see…

Straight forward would lead us to what looked like some broken down Ruins… This would take us 3 or 4 hours of travel, but appealed to me for some reason.

To the right was a barren forest of some sort, but my instincts told me that we shouldn’t head in that direction, and the group agreed.

And so to the Ruins it was…

We needed to get some sleep, and we figured we’d find an abandoned building and finally get some, as opposed to trying to rest in the open.

We traveled without incident, and once there, we found a Ruin which still had 3 walls, the fourth was torn down.

Laenor took half of the Party to check the immediate surroundings for safety, and came across what looked to be an Ancient School of Magic, which is shocking, as Magic has been frowned upon in Tch’Ahem B’Aer for hundreds of years.

Meanwhile, as we waited for them to return, so that we could at last get some sleep, I heard scratching noises around us…

“Gnolls,” I spoke, and the others readied.

Suddenly two Gnolls appeared, and the battle began.

Keeping in mind, if one of these ‘Cursed’ Gnolls scratched or bit any of the Magic Wielders, they would potentially be cursed, and face a certain death.

There were ten Gnolls in all, but the rest of the Party returned, so at least we did not have to face them alone.

In the end the battle was long, but successful, though I nearly got scratched trying to protect the Druid.

I’m not sure that this cause is truly worth losing our lives, part of me feels that I can serve my God Theramus in a better way than this…